


The Fungus

by seekingferret



Category: The Larry Sanders Show
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingferret/pseuds/seekingferret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If I had to make a choice between my plant's life and yours, I'd have to flip a coin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fungus

_"You folks see that flashing sign up there? Now, that sign says "Applause." No, no, I'm kidding. It says "Applesauce."_

_**CUT** _

_"You folks see that flashing sign up there? Now, that sign says "Applause."_

_**CUT** _

_"You folks see that flasher up there?"_

_**CUT** _

_"You folks see that flashing sign up there? Now, that sign says: "Applesauce." No, no, I'm kidding. It says "Applause." Larry, do me a favor. Could you flick that once?."_

_**CUT** _

_"Bob, do me a favor."  
"Artie, do me a favor."  
"Darlene, do me a favor."_

_**CUT CUT CUT** _

 

Artie Damonica stood in his usual spot. There were good reasons why he should move out of the Stone Age and run the show from the control room, where he'd have access to all of the technical resources available to a producer working just five years before the start of the new millennium. But there were seventeen reasons why Artie rejected all of those and stood in his usual spot, and he'd only had to use six of them before the network bastards stopped pushing the issue and moved on to the next in their limitless stream of bullshit ideas for making the show run better. Which thankfully meant he hadn't had to reveal the most important reason, the reason even more important than, "Because Larry would go to pieces if he couldn't glance over at me every thirty seconds for reassurance."

The show went well, after Larry worked out his anger about Hank's fuckups in the warm-up with a couple of cheap monologue jokes at Hank's expense. Fifteen minutes after the show Artie didn't remember what those jokes were. Truth was, Artie didn't listen to the shows much anymore, not the specific words. He listened for the feel of the show. Was there an edge in Larry's voice? Were the guests faking their laughs? Was the audience on Larry's side, or against him? And even more than the listening was the watching. It was Artie's job, more than the fucker working as DP this month, to make sure the lighting didn't make Larry's face look jaundiced or puffy. And to make sure Hank was holding his mark in the sketches. And to make sure the set wasn't showing signs of impending collapse. Those were the things that made a difference.

After the show, Larry rushed toward Artie's spot, trailing the tails of his suit coat and a cloud of steam two miles long. Artie put his practiced smile on his face, thinking to himself how glad he was that the cloud of steam wasn't four miles long this time. 

"Good show, Larry!" he said, turning his stout body with precision to match Larry's determined sprint away from the stage. They quickly passed through the blue curtain and instantly Larry's blood pressure started to drop. Artie could tell. All of Larry's physiological signs of post-show-relaxation were starting to appear. The flush on his cheeks faded. His walking stance became more regular as his sciatica started to subside.

Then the flush returned, which wasn't a regression, just another step in the post-show-relaxation ritual. Along with the yelling that inevitably accompanied it. Larry shouted, "Artie, what the hell was going on with Hank today?" Artie just kept smiling. 

"I thought he was great. I thought he brought a real energy to his performance. That man's a professional." This was the point when the smiling usually started to hurt, but not as much as the bullet he'd been carrying since Korea, which was how Artie judged pain. Anything that hurt more than the bullet, you took a couple of morphine tabs and saw how you felt in the morning. Anything that hurt less, you took like a goddamn man. 

"Artie, cut the crap. It took twenty-one takes for him to warm up the fucking audience. He gives that speech every single day, even though it's not funny. You'd think he'd at least have it memorized by now. Artie, could you talk to him for me? Fix whatever's going on with him, will you?"

"I'll get right on that." Then Artie paused, as if he was thinking. The pause, like the rest of this bullshit routine, was choreographed to the second. Of course Artie was going to be the one who talked to Hank, because Larry's delicate nerves weren't up to it, but Artie didn't like it if Larry didn't feel a little bit guilty about it. "Unless you want to talk to him. He might talk to you when he won't talk to me. You two have a bond!"

"You think so? Well, okay, maybe I'll do it tomorrow morning, if you don't get to it first." Which meant Artie had damned well better get to it first, but that was no worse than he'd expected.

The guests that night had been Leslie Nielsen (filling in after Matthew Perry cancelled again), Natalie Imbruglia and Quentin Tarantino. Thankfully Tarantino had disappeared as soon as he finished filming his appearance, leaving Artie to shmooze after the show with Nielsen while Larry lurked in Imbruglia's dressing room doorway and awkwardly tried to flirt without seeming twenty five years older than her.

Artie and Leslie were sitting in Artie's office drinking a nineteen-year-old Glenlivet and telling stories about things Meryl Streep had done naked when the new production assistant popped in. The staff had taken to sending her to deliver any bad news to Larry or Artie that they didn't want to be present for. "Which weasel sent you this time, Connie?" Artie drawled, his voice betraying the intended effects the booze was already starting to have on his body. 

The new PA was twenty-one, having freshly dropped out of USC film school to 'learn what the business was really like.' She was six foot one, blonde, and curvy, which explained why Phil was almost desperately eager to teach her. But she'd survived her first week, successfully put off Phil's come-ons, and ingratiated herself with Paula and Darlene and Beverly when they'd come to the realization that Larry was less likely to be pissed off when it was Connie who told him that the network wanted to give notes, or that Matthew Perry had cancelled again. "Paula wanted me to tell you that she saw a brown spot on one of your plants," she said.

Artie's glass, still a quarter full, clattered to the floor.

\----

Artie usually didn't knock before entering Hank's office, because he wanted to make sure Hank knew that someone could walk in on him at any moment. It didn't reduce the likelihood that Hank would become involved in some stupidly sordid sex scandal again, but it did reduce the likelihood that it would happen in the office, and that mattered. A Hank Kingsley sex scandal off-premises was a headache for Artie. A Hank Kingsley sex scandal on-premises was a problem for Artie. The difference between a headache and a problem was all the difference in the world. At minimum, training Hank not to expect a knock taught him to lock the door before his pre-show masturbation ritual. 

When Hank opened the door and found Artie standing outside, waiting to be invited in, it freaked the shit out of him. He dove toward his desk and shoved a piece of paper on top of a package that was still clearly a jar of prescription drugs. The reason for Hank's abnormal-even-for-Hank memory lapses of late? Perhaps. It didn't really matter. Artie had a more important problem, and for once, he needed Hank's help. Artie stored the image of the pill jar in his mind to deal with later.

"Come in," Hank said, nervously. "Is this about the warm-ups? I can do better on the warm-ups. You know I can. Today will be better, I promise."

"Aw, forget the warm-ups. Larry has a bug up his ass, as usual. Just keep doing your job. Listen, Hank," Artie said, injecting a bit of ingratiating charm in his voice as if he were talking to one of the guests, "I have a favor to ask."

Hank stood bolt upright, forgetting about the pills. "Of course, Artie. Anything for you, buddy. Is it money? I already promised I'd lend Larry five hundred bucks, but I can spare at least two-fifty for you." It's all Artie could do to keep from rolling his eyes. There was a nub of glue poking out from between the toe and the sole of Hank's worn-out shoes, among the many telltales that Hank was in the throes of yet another bout with insolvency. Not that Artie would accept money from Hank even if he were (temporarily, of course) flush. That would be a rabbit hole deeper than the night he accepted a handful of pills from Grace Slick. 

"Cut the crap, Hank, it's nothing like that. It's those good people you know at Garden Weasel. I want you to ask them to send a garden expert over to the show."

"Of course! I'll have Brian make the call right now. They really are good people, Artie. I knew you'd love the sketch." Hank beamed and fondled the middle button on his sports jacket, then walked over to his closet and produced a twisty red stick that vaguely resembled the Garden Weasel. 

Artie blinked twice as he remembered there was more than one way to go down the rabbit hole with Hank. "What sketch?"

As he answered, Hank rolled the metal wheels on the far end of the stick across his carpet. "The Garden Claw sketch that Phil and I have been working on. Oh, I'm so glad you're finally letting me put it on the air. And the good people at Garden Weasel are going to be thrilled."

Arthur sighed. "All right, Hank. You can do the Garden Claw sketch. But you have to get the good people at Garden Weasel to send over a garden expert as soon as possible. One of my plants has a fungus and it's not responding to the fungicidal cream."

"You got it, Artie. You won't regret this, I promise."

\---

"Beverly!" Artie shouted down the hallway. She got up from her desk and ambled toward his office. When she was inside, he snapped at her, "Where's Larry?"

"He's hiding from the Garden Weasel people." The look on her face revealed her exasperation with her boss. Then she backed it up with a shrug in response to the questioning look on Artie's face. "What do you want from me, Artie? Larry's a big baby sometimes. He's afraid they're upset with him about the last time. He said, 'Those garden gadgets are sharp.' He's spent the past hour in the men's room."

"Thanks, Beverly. I'll take care of it. By the way, thanks for the birthday present."

"Oh, you liked it? I'm glad. It was handmade." She looked pleased. 

Artie grunted at her. "I could tell."

\---

"Larry, I know you're in there! You can't hide from me, you old coward!"

Artie stood outside the handicapped stall in the studio bathroom with an impatient look on his face. The gaffer in the urinal by the door finished his business, then turned while zipping up and raised an eyebrow at Artie before leaving the room. 

A whine came from inside the stall. "I'm not hiding, Artie. I have business to take care of in here. If you'd just let me..."

"Aww, cut the bullshit, old friend. You're hiding from the Garden Weasel people. You've been in there for an hour." He paused. "They're good people, Larry. Hank says so."

"Well, Hank is a great judge of character, so I don't see how we can go wrong there." The stall door opened and Larry's head poked out. "I humiliated them, Artie. I made jokes about Jimmy Hoffa! I couldn't face them now. It would just be too awkward."

A hand reached out, sprung by practiced military reflexes, and grabbed Larry's shirt by the collar. "Now, you listen here, boy. There is a fungus growing on the dorsal leaves of my golden palm. If that fungus goes unchecked for another three days it will worm its greasy cilia deep into the chordic xylem and I'll have to cut off half the tree to save it. I am not going to let that happen. So you will go out there, you will help Hank do the Garden Weasel sketch, and you will not piss off the people who are going to save my plant. Because if I had to make a choice between my plant's life and yours, I'd have to flip a coin. Capisce?"

Larry's eyes went glassy. "Uh, yes, Artie. Let me just wash my hands first."

He was out the door in seventeen seconds. 

\--

Larry and Hank, wearing head-to-toe yellow and black horizontal stripes and translucent wings, stood in front of a box of dirt with two Garden Claws sticking out of it. Larry had a frozen smile on his lips; Hank just stared straight ahead, focused.

"Hello, ladies and gentlemen," Larry offered, glancing over at Hank nervously. The crowd answered back with a lukewarm, "Hello, Larry." 

"Hey now!" Hank tried, to more enthusiastic response from the audience. He grinned and waved.

Larry continued his pitch. "As you can see, the two of us are bumblebees." Scattered laughter dripped across the audience. "Tell them why you're wearing a tiara, Hank."

Hank grinned again, and waved again. "Because I'm the Queen Bee, Larry." The crowd applauded, and after just a moment too long, Hank took a generous bow.

Over at Artie's spot, Phil and Artie watched the sketch. Artie growled at Phil, "You wrote this?" Phil nodded. 

"Hank stole your lunch out of the fridge again, didn't he?" Artie asked. Phil nodded.

"Now, as bumblebees, we're very serious about taking care of flowers. If your flowers die, we have nothing to make our honey from. So we understand what it takes to make your flowers grow as big as this one." A giant flower, perhaps twice as tall as Hank, lowered down from the ceiling.

"You realize this sketch is shit, Phil?" Artie asked. Phil nodded. He had at least the grace to look a little embarrassed. Goddamn his luck. On other shows, only the talent got to be divas, but he had to deal with writers who were divas, too. 

Hank picked up the pitch from Larry, and a very relieved bumblebee slouched his way out of the foreground as subtly as he could. "Now, the number one thing that we bumblebees recommend when you're planting new flowers is to make sure to aerate the soil with the amazing Garden Claw. With its versatile Easy-Grip handle, you just thrust it into the soil and give it a gentle turn with your wrist. Just thrust and turn."

"Coincidentally, that's also Hank's favorite bedroom technique," Larry added from the side of the frame, to raucous applause. Hank restrained his grimace with a very professional, very frozen smile. 

"The best thing is, folks, if you have a bad back like the one I'm taking these pills for, the Garden Claw requires absolutely no bending, guaranteed. You just stand over the area you want to aerate and the adjustable handle will let you thrust and turn from a fully upright position. So ladies and gentlemen, as soon as our show is over..."

"No flipping!"

"Call 1-800-544-8147 for the deal of a lifetime. The Garden Claw from Garden Weasel, bumblebee approved. Bumblebee Hank signing off." Hank looked at Larry, pleadingly.

"And Bumblebee Larry, signing off." 

"Next time, I expect you to act like a professional, Phil. You know Hank's an idiot. He's not responsible for anything he does. He's like OJ Simpson. He just does the first thing that comes into his head and we're lucky if the consequences occur to him later. Most of the time he doesn't even realize he's doing it. "

Phil nodded. "Sorry, Artie. It won't happen again. It's just..."

"What?"

"That was a really good sandwich."

\--

"Paula!" Beverly called down the hallway. The booker slowed and then, turning her head, stopped in the narrow corridor, allowing Beverly to catch up with her. "Larry wanted me to confirm that Rob Lowe is still on for tomorrow's show."

Paula gave Beverly a pinched grin. "That's the fifth time he's asked. I spoke to Rob ten minutes ago. He sounds thrilled. He's full of ideas for that St. Elmo's Fire sketch."

Beverly shrugged helplessly. She'd long ago lost any shame about performing the tasks Larry was too gutless to perform himself, but she'd also learned about the same time that if she didn't at least feign frustration with Larry's neurotic obsessions, people would take it out on her. "Thanks, Paula. Sorry to bother you again. You know how Larry is."

Paula nodded in sympathy. "You do a good job, Beverly. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Hey, are we still on for Sister Circle next weekend? We're overdue."

"Yeah, I know. We've had to cancel the last two because Josie's kids got sick. Including your birthday party. The next time she uses that excuse we should demand an actual thermometer reading."

Paula laughed wickedly. "I told her if she cancels again, I'm making Artie fire her. Oh, and speaking of my birthday party, I never thanked you for that birthday present."

"Oh, you liked it? I'm so pleased. It was handmade." Beverly's cheeks flushed. 

Paula grunted. "I could tell."

\---

Artie and the expert from the Garden Weasel company stood behind Larry's desk after the show. Over by the band was the display of Garden Claws. Their long, red, tee-shaped shafts held the twisted metal claws on their end. The expert brushed a finger against the brown spot and muttered softly, "I'm sorry, Mr. Damonica, I can't give you any advice on those plants." 

"What do you mean? You're a goddamned garden expert, aren't you? I told them to send over an expert at gardening!" Artie's nostrils flared like the bull he'd wrestled in Pamplona. Artie flashed to that Spanish hacienda garden. Those lovely imported lilies perfectly offset against the native flora. Artie spending his days with mud nearly up to his knees, pulling weeds and pruning leaves while whichever beauty he'd been fucking that year lounged in a lakeside chair.

"I am, but Mr. Damonica, this isn't a garden. These are houseplants. I'm an expert at the operation of the Garden Weasel and other tools for weed removal in a residential garden. You need someone with an entirely different range of expertise. I'd suggest a botanist from the University."

"Now, listen to me! I let that idiot Hank sully my show with that idiot sketch of yours with the understanding that you would take care of the problem with my golden palms! You are damned well going to get rid of the fungus, you cocksucking white trash hoodlum pimp or so help me God I will hire a German prostitute with a strap-on."

The expert edged slowly away from the plants and Artie, looking concerned. "Now, Mr. Damonica, let's not say anything we'll regret later. I'll be reporting this conversation to my superiors at the Garden Weasel Corporation and I assure you they will have words with your network liaison about this. I'm not used to being treated this way. And I think I had better be going now."

Hank appeared behind Artie, as Artie watched the expert run away. "Boy," he said, "Those Garden Weasel people are great, aren't they?"

\---

The next day when Artie arrived on set he found a man in a khaki shirt and brown shorts crouched slightly and spraying something on his plants while Brian supervised.

"Brian," he bellowed. "Who the hell is this cocksucker and what is he doing with my plants?"

Brian remained calm. "Actually, Artie, I'm the cocksucker. This is my cousin Jamie. He's a horticulturalist at the Getty Museum. I asked him if he could take a look at your plants two days ago, but this was his first available chance to come. He says the fungus is Rhidobozus Helmera and he has a spray that should kill it in forty eight hours without harming the plants."

"Actually, it's Rhibodozus Helmera, but that's close enough for a layman." The man finally turned away from his spraying to look at Artie. He placed his spray bottle on Larry's desk and reached out to shake Artie's hand. "Dr. James O'Hallis. This fungicide should solve all of your problems."

Artie ignored the hand and enfolded the man in a giant bear hug.

"Never leave me," he bawled.


End file.
